Spielberg's in at Oscars, Bigelow, Affleck are out

Steven Spielberg had a great day at the Academy Awards nominations, where his Civil War saga "Lincoln" led with 12 nominations.

It was not so great for Kathryn Bigelow, Tom Hooper and Ben Affleck, whose films did well but surprised — dare we say shocked? — Hollywood by failing to score directing nominations for the three filmmakers.

"I just think they made a mistake," said Alan Arkin, a supporting-actor nominee for Affleck's Iran hostage-crisis tale "Argo."

Also nominated for the top honor were the old-age love story "Amour"; the independent hit "Beasts of the Southern Wild"; the slave-revenge narrative "Django Unchained"; the shipwreck story "Life of Pi"; and the lost-souls romance "Silver Linings Playbook."

A mostly predictable bunch. But it's baffling how Bigelow — the first woman to earn the directing Oscar for her 2009 best-picture winner "The Hurt Locker" — missed out on a nomination for one of last year's most-acclaimed films.

"Yes, it was a surprise," Spielberg said of Bigelow. "But I've been surprised myself through the years, so I know what it feels like."

Spielberg was snubbed for a directing slot on 1985's "The Color Purple," which earned 11 nominations, including best picture. He also was overlooked for director on 1975's "Jaws," another best-picture nominee.

"I never question the choices the academy branches make, because I've been in the same place that Kathryn and Ben find themselves today," said Spielberg, who finally got his Oscar respect in the 1990s with best-picture and director wins for "Schindler's List" and another directing trophy for "Saving Private Ryan." ''I'm grateful if I'm nominated, and I've never felt anything other than gratitude even when I'm not — gratitude for at least having been able to make the movie. So I never question the choices."

Especially this time, when "Lincoln" has positioned itself as the film to beat at the Feb. 24 Oscars. Its nominations include best actor for Daniel Day-Lewis for his monumental performance as Abraham Lincoln, supporting actress for Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln and supporting actor for Tommy Lee Jones as abolitionist firebrand Thaddeus Stevens.

Oscar directing contenders usually are identical or at least line up closely with those for the Directors Guild of America Awards. But only Spielberg and "Life of Pi" director Ang Lee made both lists this time.

The Directors Guild also nominated Affleck, Bigelow and Hooper, but the Oscars handed its other three slots to David O. Russell for "Silver Linings Playbook" and two real longshots: veteran Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke for "Amour" and newcomer Benh Zeitlin, who made his feature debut with "Beasts of the Southern Wild."

Zeitlin, whose low-budget, dream-like film about a wild child in Louisiana's flooded backwoods won the top honor at last year's Sundance Film Festival, said he never expected to be competing "alongside the greatest filmmakers alive."

"I'm completely freaking out," Zeitlin said. "Those guys taught me how to make films. The VHS pile that was on the VCR when I was born was past Spielberg movies, and that's why I started wanting to do this, was watching them thousands and thousands of times."

Other nominees were caught off guard over how the category shook out.

"I would be lying if I didn't say I was surprised," Russell, a past nominee for "The Fighter," said about Bigelow.

Lee, who won the directing Oscar for "Brokeback Mountain," agreed that there were surprises — but pleasant ones, particularly for Zeitlin's inclusion.

"Newcomers, veterans, a European," Lee said. "It's great company, and it's an honor to line up with them, and encouraging because there is a newcomer."

Colleagues of snubbed filmmakers were not so happy.

"That put a damper on my enthusiasm," ''Argo" co-star Arkin said of Affleck, an A-lister who's arguably proving himself a better director than actor. "I thought his work was the work of an old master, not somebody with just two films under his belt. I thought it was an extraordinary piece of directing."

"I would have loved him to have been recognized in this," Hugh Jackman, a best-actor nominee as Hugo's tragic hero Jean Valjean for "Les Miserables," said of director Hooper. "But no one will be able to take away the achievement, nor really that the eight nominations that 'Les Miz' has are more shared with him than with anyone."

Composer Alexandre Desplat, who wrote the music for "Zero Dark Thirty" and "Argo" and earned a best-score nomination for the latter, said he was puzzled over Affleck and Bigelow's exclusion.

"I think they both deserved to be nominated," Desplat said. "Unfortunately, I don't decide."

"Zero Dark Thirty" has had backlash in Washington, where some lawmakers say it falsely suggests that torture produced a tip that led the U.S. military to Bin Laden. It's hard to imagine that affecting the film's Oscar nominations, though, given Hollywood's history of playing loose with facts in depicting true-life stories.

The academy's directing snubs virtually take "Argo," ''Les Miserables" and "Zero Dark Thirty" out of the best-picture race, since a movie almost never wins the top prize if the filmmaker is not nominated. It can happen — 1989's "Driving Miss Daisy" did it — but a directing nomination usually goes hand-in-hand with a best-picture win.

The nominations held other surprises. "Amour" won the top prize at last May's Cannes Film Festival but mainly was considered a favorite for the foreign-language Oscar. It wound up with five nominations, the same number as "Zero Dark Thirty," which came in with expectations of emerging as a top contender.

Along with best-picture, director and foreign-language film, "Amour" picked up nominations for Haneke's screenplay and best actress for Emmanuelle Riva as an ailing, elderly woman tended by her husband.

"It's the last stage of my life, so this nomination is a gift to me, a dream I could never had imagined," Riva said. "Michael's talent is to make the film real. ... That's why it touched the world. We are all little, fragile people on this earth, sometimes nasty, sometimes generous."

Riva is part of a multi-generational spread: At 85, Riva is the oldest best-actress nominee ever, while 9-year-old Quvenzhane Wallis is the youngest ever for her role as the spirited bayou girl in "Beasts of the Southern Wild."

Spielberg matched his personal Oscar best as "Lincoln" tied the 12 nominations that "Schindler's List" received.

Two of Spielberg's stars could join the Oscar super-elite. Both Day-Lewis and Field have won two Oscars already. A third would put them in rare company with previous triple winners Ingrid Bergman, Walter Brennan, Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. Katharine Hepburn holds the record with four acting Oscars.

A best-picture win would be Spielberg's second, while another directing win would be his third, a feat achieved only by Frank Capra and William Wyler, who each earned three directing Oscars, and John Ford, who received four.

"Lincoln" also was the ninth best-picture nominee Spielberg has directed, moving him into a tie for second-place with Ford. Only Wyler directed more best-picture nominees, with 13.

"I think Steven is a full-fledged genius. I think he has transformed the motion-picture industry more than once, and he's constantly pushing the envelope and changing," Field said. "He stands alone. And he has the most profound respect, and he's a scholar of John Ford and William Wyler and many others. ... He's a scholar of all of this because he's so endlessly curious."

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